


Blood Magic (Sans Blood and Magic)

by VintProtectionSquad



Series: Ways Adaar Might Have Come Out To Dorian (Plus Some) [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adaar doesnt want to be like Halward, Fluff, M/M, Mild internalised transphobia, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5875639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintProtectionSquad/pseuds/VintProtectionSquad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You think you're changing me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Magic (Sans Blood and Magic)

There's something to be said about the way Julian always, _always_  stands so close when we speak, but shies away whenever anyone so much as implies that they might touch him, be it physically or verbally. It's rather curious, really, for such an affectionate man to be so fearful of any real contact.

It's all the more curious when I go to his quarters one evening to truly offer myself to him, only to see his ears go flat against his skull and his brow knit.

"Dorian, I-I..." His hands wring close to his stomach, and his expression is nothing short of pure conflict. "You're...a marvelous man, truly, a-and I'm flattered that you'd even offer, but I...don't think I'm the kind of man you want to be so close to." Now _that_ makes my brow quirk, and I can't help but to cross my arms as I regard him critically. I never would have taken Adaar to be the self-conscious type; he's timid, yes, but still confident nonetheless.

"And why would that be?"

"I'm just...different than what you're expecting."

"What I'm expecting is your body, however it may be. Unless you've got tentacles under your clothes- and might I just say, while that would be distressing, I wouldn't be _completely_  opposed to the notion- there isn't anything there that would have me cringing." He's quiet for a time, regarding me with- vishante kaffas, kicked mabari eyes.

"I'm not sure you know what you're saying," he mutters, and I can feel my patience starting to thin. If he doesn't want a night of nothing but body heat and low, breathy voices he can just say so.

"Then enlighten me, Inquisitor. What am I saying?"

"....I'm less of a man than you think."

"I beg your pardon?" His jaw hardens for a moment, then his hands go to the buttons of his reddish-gray tunic.

"I'm willing to bet there haven't been men in your life who look like me," he says as, one by one, he opens his shirt. When I imagined this happening it wasn't quite when he had such an intense expression on his face, and I only feel more bewildered when the peekings of some sort of wrapped cloth come into view upon his chest. "There's a word for what I am- in Qunlat. _Aqun-athlok_." The shirt falls to the ground, and I have to admit that he has an absolutely stunning stomach- not chiseled, no, but smooth with an inwards bellybutton. He also has but the thinnest traces of a happy trail leading downwards.

"Dorian." I look up to meet his gaze, and there's worry in his eyes again as his hands move to the top of the cloth- where it looks like the end was tucked in. He slows his movements now, and suddenly what he means about his body clicks. "It's used to describe someone who was born as one sex, but lives as another. That's the proper description, any ways." Finally he's done unwrapping himself, but when the fabric hits the ground his hands stay where they are over his chest. I can see around his arms that it isn't flat by any stretch of imagination- but I find myself not caring. This is, admittedly, not something I have any sort of expertise on at all, and yet...

"Julian," before I know what I'm doing I'm stepping forward and taking his hands in mine, looking directly into his eyes as I interlock our fingers. "This doesn't change anything. This doesn't change _a_ _nything_." He only relaxes some the second time I say it, then his eyes drift down to his own breasts.

"Your father wanted to change you. He wanted you to- to have a female lover. I don't want to change you like that too."

Ah. So that's the root of the problem.

"You think you're changing me?" There are tears in his eyes now, and he bites his lower lip as he pointedly keeps his gaze to the ground beside me. "Oh, Julian-" I pause, watch his face, then lean in marginally to hold his gaze. "Amatus, you haven't changed me. You're a man, just like me, and Bull, and Cullen, and all other men. I don't see you as a woman at all, because you aren't one."

The hiccup that leaves his throat has him moving a hand to cover his mouth, but the look in his eyes is happier than before, and I thank the Maker for that little gift.

"'Amatus'..." he repeats shakily, the grin behind his hand even more unsteady than his voice. "I never thought I'd hear that aimed at me."

* * *

 

That night I do end up in the Inquisitor's bed, but the evening has less bumping than I'd anticipated.

I tell him I'd prefer him not to put a shirt back on, so he lays back on the mattress and lets me kiss his neck, shoulders, and chest. He keeps his arms folded by his head, but every once in a while he'll stroke my cheek and lean in for a proper kiss. It's endearing, the way he smiles when I brush a particularly sensitive spot, or sighs and shifts his hips when I bite and suck somewhere.

At one point I might've thought that this was wrong- that this isn't the kind of body I should be attracted to. But now, when I look at him, I see only a person who has stripped himself down to his core and bared this 'shameful' side of himself for someone else to see, and he's absolutely _beautiful_.

I don't think of the skin below me as belonging to a man _or_  woman, but simply to Julian. So when he looks at me with all the warmth in the world I grin back and murmur praises and endearments that for so long have remained dormant on my tongue, and sometimes he repeats them back to me, or speaks in another tongue altogether. A few Orlesian phrases pass his lips, and I understand bits here and there, but then his dialect goes Elvish, and whatever syrupy things are being said go straight over my head.

I'll have to ask him what they mean some other time, but for now all that matters is the heat of his body below me and the raw emotion that we've allowed the other to see. That's good enough for me in this moment, and it seems to be good enough for him as well.


End file.
